After four days at sea still just over five miles separate the top seven boats in the Figaro's doublehanded Transat AG2R. Overnight the crews have been receiving their third caning as yet another depression rolls east to their north. The cold front associated with this weather system is on a NE-SW axis and has been passing over the boats over the course of this morning, although with a reported 25-30 knots ahead of it, it has not been nearly as severe as the gale force winds the boats endured on Sunday night as they approached Cape Finistere. Nonetheless the seastate is currently rough due to the swift change of wind direction, making for something of a boneshaken ride aboard the 32 footers.

At present the leaderboard has changed little from yesterday morning with nothing to separate Fréd Duthil and Francois Lebourdais aboard Sepalumic from Erwan Tabarly and Eric Peron on Nacarat in terms of distance to the mark they must round to the north of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, still around 580 miles to their south, although they are 15 miles apart on the water with Sepalumic further south.

Conditions are set to show a marked improvement over the course of today as the depression reaches the UK this afternoon (great...) causing the wind to veer into the northwest again, allowing the competitors to set their kites once again. However from tomorrow conditions are set to go soft with the 'Azores' high closer to Newfoundland than the Azores and with an area of high pressure developing over North Africa, causing the wind to drop below 10 knots and shift between west and north.

For the Artemis Offshore Racing duo Sam Goodchild and Nick Cherry, they have unfortunately dropped out of the leading pack, although they lead the second wave, now in eighth place.

“Long, hard night. Very dark and struggling to find speed so, lost some distance. 600miles to Las Palmas," reported Goodchild this morning.